Safety

It’s hard to believe that October is already here, and as those of us with children prepare to go trick-or-treating, many truck drivers are dreading their encounter with snow on their next cross-country trip. Preparing and training drivers for winter driving takes a lot more than watching back-to-back episodes of Ice Road Truckers. I think every reader can agree that the most prepared drivers are the ones who are inevitably the best trained. Watching past episodes of reality television, as entertaining as that may be, is not going to cut it.

Volvo Trucks will once again honor the safest fleets in North America with $25,000 to be used toward their safety-related activities.
For the seventh straight year, Volvo will recognize two fleets with the safest driving records and top safety programs with the Volvo Trucks Safety Award....More

New driver training videos have been made available by Detroit Diesel Corp. The videos focus on Detroit’s new Assurance suite of safety systems and the integrated Detroit powertrain.
Introduced in 2014, Detroit Assurance systems are seamlessly integrated into the truck’s dashboard, engine and transmission electronics, the company said. They are available on Freightliner Cascadia Evolution and Cascadia trucks equipped with Detroit engines....More

QuikQ, which provides cardless direct fuel connections between truck stop point-of-sale and fleet management systems, has delved into another area of security with its new Q-Gate technology.
The new software detects and validates vehicle mounted RFID tags and engages existing gate opening systems. This prevents an unauthorized vehicle from entering a secure location and can reduce the risk of picking up the wrong trailer before exiting a facility....More

Four interest groups are requesting a rulemaking initiative from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to mandate anti-collision technology on all trucks and buses with a gross vehicle weight (GVW) at or exceeding 10,000 lbs....More

The National Private Truck Council has joined the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Transportation Productivity (CTP), a group of shippers, motor carriers and their associations seeking to increase truck weight limits. ...More

Two months into the new year and I have finally managed to get used to dating paperwork, letters and checks with 2015 rather than 2014. Now let’s think about this for a moment. What has really changed in our industry over the past year other than the actual numbers? We have all seen and reviewed ATRI’s list of top issues that affect our industry, and they are eerily similar to the list that came out the year before and even the year before that....More

Meritor Wabco said its OnGuard collision mitigation system is now available on fire trucks manufactured by E-One.
The first vehicle equipped with the new safety component is now in use by a fire department in Pennsylvania....More

The members of the Entry-Level Driver Training Advisory Committee (ELDTAC) have been announced by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), along with the dates of the committee’s first public meeting. In plain English, FMCSA has said who will decide the future of the entry-level driver training rule that it has been trying so hard, to no success, to develop....More

If truck drivers complain about speeding four-wheelers, they’re not just imagining things: The results from a recent highway law enforcement blitz showed non-commercial vehicle drivers were cited at a ratio of nearly 10 to 1, compared to truckers. However, compliance investigations resulted in 1 in 4 CSA-targeted carriers being issued proposed unsatisfactory safety ratings....More